A Question of Balance
After “Webmasters Excuses 101” I had almost forgotten my intention to balance things out with some of the daftest/irritatingest/gobsmackyest things that I had been asked as a webmaster rather than by webmasters until the other day when I got number one on the list laid on me. My fingers were twitching before I hung up the phone……
Be in my office tomorrow – it’s urgent.
If your site isn’t down and your e-mails are not lost – on no it darn well isn’t. Furthermore – what am I supposed to do from your office?
In this case it was a punter who has me confused with the IT specialist he does not have - and has yet to realize I work with him – not for him – as a freelance webmaster.
Kinda basic but you would be amazed how people seek to mission-creep webmaster into web-and-virtually-anything-else-with-a-computermaster.
So – if it’s urgent to you, either make sure it’s my problem as well as yours or else go call the right guy to tell them how urgent it is – and if they need paying for the task (whereas I do not) then that isn’t my problem either.
Otherwise ask nicely and I’ll drop by when I’m free and try to help out.
Just add this into my (dynamic) site, will you? It shouldn’t take long
These words are generally spoken gesturing casually at a twenty page handwritten document or a hundred pages of poor quality photocopies or an inch-thick brochure.
Actually it’s not going to take me any time at all – because you will be doing it!
If there was a slot on the back of my monitor where you drop the pages in and they would automatically be squirted up to the net with spellings corrected and grammar re-worked then it would not be a problem. That’s why you asked for a dynamic site – so that YOU could update it.
Offloading a week’s work onto me for free is not going to happen. If you are really that busy – get a secretary. My last website didn’t work out so we need to be economical about the new one.
Sorry, but what are we saying here – you have no budget? Just say that then - we’ll figure something out, don’t worry.
I freely admit that the web design business in full of amateur crooks with nice offices and hardly a clue as to what they are doing. Any fool can build a website these days – and a large number of fools do and quite a few suckers are paying them a fortune for doing so. Very few people can build a site that works.
But if you mean I need to work cheap because you blew it the first time, consider this: 1. Darling – my first marriage was a catastrophe so you will need to work extra hard on this one. 2. The car I bought from another dealer was so awful that you need to sell me another one extra cheap. 3. When I ate at another restaurant the food was dreadful – so I expect a discount here. In the case of the webmaster and item number two – expect to get laughed at, for one and three, anticipate a frying pan around the back of the head. Just look out some pictures on Google.
Why – are you not on the internet? Whatever I find you need to approve so cut out the middle man and get busy, plus be aware of copyright issues. I’ll be happy to show you how to use right-click (at your own risk) or else to recommend a photographer. Do three or four websites and I’ll look at them and choose. Pay for them and you got it! Better still lets develop one together and save you a bunch of money and me a load of time. Now that it’s finished, I’d prefer it in pink after all…. Dude – we are NOT going to be friends – especially if this is followed by “or maybe green, or something….I dunno” Where was your head at the development stage?
For a quality result – I need quality input and that means you, the client, on the ball.
If you needed to ask your wife first (or indeed anyone else) before committing – absolutely fine. But ask her early on so the three of us can chat over options and you can thrash out your opinions as a team before bringing them to me to finalise. I want five websites so you have to offer a big discount. Of course you do – But the first site is not going to be for free because you are going to be such a big customer at some point in the distant future so don’t ask. Nice try, though,
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